piscosus

Pronunciation

• Classical: [pɪsˈkoː.sʊs]^[1]
• Ecclesiastical: [pisˈkɔː.s̬us]^[1]

Forms

piscōsus (feminine piscōsa, neuter piscōsum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin piscis (“fish”) + -ōsus.^[2][1][3] The noun goes back to Proto-Italic *piski- and Proto-Indo-European *pisk- (“fish”), cognate with Old Irish íasc, Old High German fisk and Old Norse fiskr; de Vaan finds the vowel of the Celtic word difficult to account for.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler records it first in Virgil,^[5] who speaks in the Aeneid of rocks teeming with fish, piscosos scopulos.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

Ovid uses it of a river and of shallows, Seneca of rivers, Martial of the Tagus and the deep, and Justin of the Ocean.^[7][6] Nonius records it in the sense “like a fish”.^[8][9] Medieval British writers used it of waters rich in fish and also of things having to do with fish or fishing.^[10] It lives on in Italian pescoso and Spanish pescoso.^[11][9]

Timeline

• 70–19 BC – Virgil speaks of rocks teeming with fish.^[2][5]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of a river.^[6][5]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it of rivers.^[6][5]
• end of the 4th or beginning of the 5th century AD – Nonius records it in the sense “like a fish”.^[8][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Teeming with fish, abounding in fish.^[2][6]
2. (Late Latin) Like a fish.^[8][9]
3. (Medieval Latin) Of or relating to fish or fishing.^[10]

Usage notes

Plautus has pisculentus in the same sense of teeming with fish.^[4][6]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ a b c Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
9. ^ a b c Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
10. ^ a b Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press
11. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften